


pulled me back from things divine

by stiction



Series: Primacy (yelling all the way down) [11]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Bad Ideas, Dubious Consent, Grinding, M/M, Matrix of Leadership (Transformers), Prime!Ratchet, Spark Sexual Interfacing (Transformers), Sticky Sexual Interfacing, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 13:15:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21639526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stiction/pseuds/stiction
Summary: Ratchet's got a super-charged spark and a willingness to experiment. Drift's more inclined toward blasphemy than originally thought.Whowouldn'twant to take a ride on Cybertron's oldest religious artifact?Or, the Matrix gets what it wanted all along.
Relationships: Drift | Deadlock/Ratchet, Drift/The Matrix of Leadership
Series: Primacy (yelling all the way down) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1424047
Comments: 6
Kudos: 106





	pulled me back from things divine

**Author's Note:**

> written in its entirety today after another grouchat epiphany:
> 
> stiction: ...so someone has like directly fragged the matrix at SOME point in history right  
towards_morning: if not ratchets gonna make the history books soon  
stiction: uh oh oh no uh OH OH NO DOES DRIFT GET TO FRAG THE MATRIX
> 
> if this is your first primacy fic, please scroll down to read additional notes

“You really want to do this?” Drift asked, like he wasn’t already kneeling over Ratchet’s open chest with his panels popped. 

Ratchet shrugged. “As long as you're careful, it's not going to kill either of us.”

That was probably as close to a yes as Drift would get. His hand hovered over the filigree engraved on the Matrix’s outer core. The corona of all those combined sparks clung to his plating and dipped into his joints. He shivered.

“And… them? How, uh… How do _they_ feel about this?”

The look Ratchet gave him went beyond long-suffering and came out on the other side of eternally put-upon. 

“_They’ve_ been clamoring to get at you for millennia,” Ratchet said. His tone was gruff but Drift could spot a glint of amusement in his optics. “They’d better not complain now that they’re getting what they want.”

A pulse of energy leapt into Drift’s palm as it moved closer to the shining core of Ratchet’s spark. Not _just _Ratchet’s spark, of course. Maybe that was part of the surrealness. He’d seen regular sparks up close, a handful of times. He didn’t want to think about that. He’d never willingly opened his chest panels for anyone. By the time he made it to a medberth he had always been incoherent or in stasis. 

It occurred to him that Ratchet had seen his spark before. Ratchet had slid the thin end of a prybar into Drift’s seams and opened his armor to get at his spark chamber, and he’d done it twice now. Drift had seen the tools he used to do it, listening intently as Ratchet showed him how a few decacycles ago. 

_This is the safest way to get to a mech’s spark_, Ratchet had said. _You should know. Just in case_. Drift had a feeling it was more of a retroactive assurance. It was sweet, regardless.

Besides, he figured this would probably even the score up. 

“Drift,” Ratchet said, thumb tracing the hip gap in Drift’s armor and pulling him back to the moment. “You with me?”

“I’m with all of you,” Drift said automatically. The twitch of Ratchet’s mouth went a long way toward getting him back on track. As far as the rest of the way went… Drift shifted, working his legs back down to straddle Ratchet’s waist instead. And oh, there _was_ a brief flicker of disappointment in Ratchet’s field, light enough to be deniable. “I just think we need to be a little better acquainted first.”

“I think we’re pretty well acquainted,” Ratchet growled. His hands slid down the small of Drift’s back and over his aft until his fingers skimmed the panels flanking Drift’s valve. “Unless you’ve got a sparktwin I’ve been fragging instead.”

Drift laughed, pressing back into the teasing touch of Ratchet’s hand. He was already wet and had been since they got to the berthroom. It was the effect that the combination of 'Ratchet' and 'horizontal, load-bearing surface' had on him these days. 

“You know who I mean,” he murmured. He didn’t give Ratchet a chance to get the last word in before he ducked down and pressed his lips to the gold shell of the Matrix. It was warm, warmer than either of them, and covered with engravings that went deeper than he had thought. He anchored himself with one hand on Ratchet’s chassis while the other started a cautious exploration. 

The Matrix was plated, he noted with some interest. That meant that it probably _opened_, though it was anyone’s guess as to how or why. An idle part of Drift’s processor scanned the religious texts he’d downloaded for any reference to transformation. He traced the seams to the edge of the inner core and then back to the spot it met Ratchet’s internals. From there he only hesitated a moment before dipping his fingers between the delicate struts of Ratchet’s chassis. 

The heat against Drift’s face grew and he turned into it, opening his mouth to tongue the fine glyphs. He groaned against the hot metal as Ratchet’s fingers pushed into his valve. His nodes felt primed already, charge flowing from every spot his frame met Ratchet’s. They’d fragged yesterday at Drift's place, in the berth Drift would be getting rid of when he _finally_ moved out, and there was a faint ache in his valve, a good ache that peaked when he pushed back onto Ratchet’s hand. 

Drift worked his fingers beneath one handle of the Matrix and froze when he realized that the rumble of Ratchet’s engine had gone quiet. He lifted his head to find Ratchet watching him, optics dim and frame shaking. He was so close to the source that when he pressed his mouth to the metal again he _felt_ the gear change before he heard the ensuing rev. 

“Good?” Drift murmured. 

Ratchet hummed. His field said more than good. 

Drift wiggled his fingers in the gap between Ratchet’s circuitry and the Matrix and a burst of charge poured out from Ratchet’s spark. It tingled hard in Drift’s armor. When it hit his protoform he arched and groaned again. 

Ratchet pulled his fingers out of Drift’s valve without warning and aimed a quick smack to his aft. 

“Get on with it, kid, or the damn thing’s gonna burn itself out,” he muttered. 

Like Drift couldn’t feel the desire in his field, or the searing heat of his plating. 

“My pleasure,” Drift said. His vocalizer was fritzing slightly already. He dropped one last kiss on the Matrix and made it a good one. The glass over the core was even hotter than the metal. A spark jumped and grounded in his tongue when he licked the inset edge. 

Ratchet cursed softly.

Satisfied, Drift sat back on his heels, running his thumb over the sudden numb spot on his tongue. 

“In case you were wondering,” he said as he clambered back up to kneel over the Matrix, “Spark energy doesn’t really taste like much.” 

Ratchet’s smile was hard won. 

“Get a move on,” Ratchet said again, this time following his smack to Drift’s aft with a tight squeeze of his plating. Urging him forward. 

It was always nice to know that Ratchet wanted something, too. He refused to say so much of it outright most of the time. Drift would coax the shamelessness out eventually. 

“Ready?” he said regardless, bracing his hands on the berth above Ratchet’s helm. 

He sensed the roll of Ratchet’s optics. “_Ready_.” 

Drift sank back until his valve met the bright heat of the Matrix. The first contact sent a jolt through his frame that nearly offlined his optics. He jerked his hips back up, valve cycling hard as his fans roared.

“Oh, that’s _good_.” 

Ratchet laughed again. When Drift glanced down, Ratchet’s dim optics were focused on Drift’s valve where it hovered above his spark.

“You look good,” Ratchet said. His hands moved to support Drift’s back, gently urging him forward again. 

“_You_ look good,” Drift countered. “Normally your mouth’s occupied in this position.”

“Don’t tempt me.” One of Ratchet’s hands dipped between his legs to stroke a rough circle over Drift’s node, the other dragging across his thigh plating. 

Drift grinned, cupping one hand around the side of Ratchet’s helm. 

The second slow grind of his valve over the scored metal was almost as overwhelming. It must’ve been the combined energy, Drift thought, and then stopped thinking. His optics shuttered automatically against the wave of heat. He was anchored by his palm against Ratchet’s cheek and the hands on his back. 

It wasn’t just his array, either-- as he ground down, his sensors tripped in sequence all the way to the tips of his pedes. His finials hummed with nonsense inputs. It felt like someone was touching every sensitive spot on his armor at the same time, fingers working at the cabling and joints to turn him liquid. He had felt Ratchet’s field before, felt it _now_ against his own. It was something different covering his frame. 

“Beautiful.”

“You’re--you’re biased,” Drift gasped, lifting his hips again in a bid for coherency. He managed to bring his optics back online. The hydraulics in his thighs hissed unevenly with the effort of holding himself up.

“I’m what?” Ratchet looked almost as dazed as he was, but much more confused. 

“You’re b--” His legs gave out with a metallic whine, dropping his weight right back onto Ratchet’s chassis. Drift swore loudly and dug both hands into the berth covers as the Matrix’s energy coursed through his frame again. His valve was wet enough that his thighs felt slick where they dragged against Ratchet’s shoulder armor. 

_Oh, Primus_, Drift thought with a scrap of lucidity. _There’s gonna be lubricant all over his internals_. 

The thought was disgusting but the next thought, the one of having Ratchet under him, still and quiet as Drift cleaned the most delicate parts of his frame, was _not_. Drift’s engine revved higher and beneath him Ratchet’s rose to match it. 

An overload was already building in his array. Drift was dimly aware that Ratchet’s hands had slid to his thighs. That explained how he was still moving, grinding against the Matrix despite his faltering struts. He felt the pop of a dent into his armor but the resulting flash of pain, normally mixed with pleasure already, registered only as another burst of charge. 

Warmth washed up through his chassis. It felt good, oil-bath, lying-in-the-starlight good, until the odd popping sensation cresting across Drift’s chest solidified into the feeling of his plating locks disengaging. 

“What,” he tried to gasp through the static. 

“Your spark,” something that was definitely _not_ Ratchet murmured. 

Drift forced his optics online again, staring dazedly down at Ratchet as he shifted Drift’s frame in tight circles. Ratchet’s own optics were shuttered, dentae dug fast into his lip. 

“What,” he breathed, more of a particularly loud thought than a word. He shook his head. No interference to his audials. Absently, he noticed that the internals of his arms were starting to fail, overwhelmed by the intensity of charge. 

“Want to feel your _spark_.” The words came from a chorus of nearly unintelligible voices that his processor managed to parse. 

Drift clutched one hand over his spark, pressing the armor shut again. The hydraulics in his arm faltered. Drift let go of his plating to catch himself on the head of the berth. He braced his arms there and locked his elbow joint.

His helm dipped as the charge tripped through his chassis. It tugged at the locks of his plating again and before he could stop it his armor transformed aside. 

The room was so much brighter with the light of two exposed sparks. 

Drift couldn't imagine how anyone managed to sparkmerge. His frame was overheating despite the roar of his fans. The cool air of the room on his spark was like a sheet of rain on an overclocked engine, and still the feeling only swamped his systems with more heat. He couldn’t merge, not like this, not with both his legs out of commission and every salacious story he’d heard about sparkmerging rattling around his processor.

The flash of panic in his field was overwhelmed with another, softer round of strut-melting warmth. 

_Easy_. The whisper came to him this time from somewhere other than his audials. _Let us care for you_. 

A quiet noise beneath him drew his attention. Ratchet’s hands had stilled on his plating and he was staring, dumbstruck, at Drift’s spark. 

Drift wrestled for control of his vocalizer. He couldn’t move away from the Matrix or from the sensation of Ratchet’s vents dumping heat against his frame. All of Drift’s weight fell onto his forearms against the headboard, his joint locks failing. 

“P-please,” he gritted out. His weight slumped forward without the pressure of Ratchet’s hands, grinding his node against the burning glass of the Matrix’s core. The shudder that wracked his frame felt like it would pull him apart. “I _need_\--” 

The rest fell off into static. He felt new dents form on his thigh armor as Ratchet gripped him harder and ground him against his open chassis. Drift’s fans choked and stalled as relief overflowed into his field. All the heat and charge came to an agonizing plateau. Ratchet’s frame rocked beneath him, urging him on. Another wave activated his sensors, dragging a long moan from his open mouth. 

His spark grew brighter and brighter still. Had it done this every time he interfaced, hidden beneath his armor? He could feel the corona pulsing, reaching further and further for another spark even as he shuttered his optics again. 

Drift tried to speak again. He needed--he didn’t know what he needed, but his clicking vocalizer failed to ask for it anyway. He was so close. 

The next burst of energy from the Matrix surged straight from his valve to his spark chamber. Every loose tendril of Drift’s corona latched on, desperate for contact, and Drift finally tipped over the edge. 

Charge dispelled in crackling waves, grounding in every available surface. Drift scrambled to grab Ratchet’s wrists and hold on. His frame jerked with the force of his overload, every piston and hydraulic seizing. His fans whined and rattled his vents. Drift mouthed nonsense that would’ve fried his vocalizer if it wasn’t already offline. He forced his processor to stay online even as his sensors shorted, clinging to Ratchet’s hands through the charge clearing his systems. 

Ratchet slipped his grip after an endless klik, bracing one palm against Drift’s lower chassis. Drift leaned into it blindly, grateful for the support. His arms trembled with every attempt to hold his weight.

Faint pulses of charge still wracked Drift’s frame as Ratchet’s other hand gently closed the armor over his spark. 

Finally, his vents eased back to their standard aperture, fans slowing from their hard limits. Sensation trickled back to his overclocked sensors. 

Drift brought his optics back online. They were bleary but functional. He let Ratchet ease his limp frame down to the berth. It was nice when Ratchet reminded him just how strong he was. Normally it made his engine rev, but at the moment it only elicited a content rumble. His frame tingled beneath his armor.

Ratchet held him close and stroked a warm hand over his finial. That was nice, too. Drift fixed his gaze on Ratchet’s chestplate, now closed once again, and let himself float. 

“You with me?” Ratchet asked. 

“Mm-hm,” Drift mumbled. 

“Be right back, then. Gotta get you cleaned up.”

“Mm-hm.”

There was a final fond rub of his helm and then Drift was alone in the berth. He didn’t quite fall into recharge, distracted by leisurely paging through some of the more relevant datafiles he’d acquired. He shifted from the religious to the practical. By the time Ratchet came back, he was no more enlightened than before. 

Ratchet’s hands moved gently as always to clean Drift’s frame. Long ago he’d compulsively compared the way Ratchet touched him to the way he touched his patients. By now he'd recognized that it was much different. For one, Ratchet swore a lot less when it was him. For another, he could feel the fondness in Ratchet’s unrestrained field, the slight jump when he eased Drift’s legs apart to clean his array. Huh. Looks like his spike had come out at some point, if the transfluid on his plating was any indication.

“Any valve burns?” he croaked when the last of the drying fluids had been rubbed from his plating. He reset his vocalizer until the static cleared.

Ratchet’s optics flicked up to him, brows raised like Drift couldn’t tell he was amused. 

“I don’t know,” Ratchet said. He set his hand on Drift’s array and traced a gentle circle over Drift’s node. “How does this feel?”

Drift legs snapped shut as he groaned, hydraulics apparently back online.

“No,” he chided. “No. I'm burnt out for the night.”

“That’s a first,” Ratchet muttered. Drift let him struggle to pull his hand free for a moment before he spread his legs again. 

“Rude.”

“_Accurate_. No pain, though?”

“Gonna need some rest and recharge, but seems all clear.” Drift stretched his arms above his head, relieved to feel his cables all in place. “Ask me again in the morning?”

“Fuel first, then recharge.”

Ratchet sat him up against the headboard and they split a cube. Drift’s haze had faded into the satisfying exhaustion that tended to follow an intense overload. He took another sip of energon before a thought occurred to him.

“Hey,” he said, dropping a hand to the inside of Ratchet’s thigh. “Did you want me to…?”

Ratchet chuckled and wrapped his fingers around Drift’s. “Think you overloaded hard enough to trip half the city. Trust me, I’m good.”

“Good,” Drift said. He leaned against Ratchet’s side, processor still ticking on a handful of complicated thoughts. The religious consequences of the past several joors. The implications of the Matrix’s affection for him. Scrubbing Ratchet’s internals. That kind of thing. He’d ask Ratchet about the cleaning thing tomorrow morning. 

“Hey, what do you think would happen if I tried spiking the Matrix?” he asked. 

Ratchet stared hard at the ceiling with the facial expression that told Drift he was having an intense conversation with the Primes. 

“Speaking as a doctor,” Ratchet said finally. “Irreparable damage to your spike.”

“Ah," Drift sighed. "Maybe not, then."

Ratchet turned to press a kiss to the side of his head. His field bled fondness. "Definitely not."

**Author's Note:**

> WORLDBUILDING NOTES: if this is the first primacy fic you've read, here's some context: the primacy AU is an aligned/IDW 1.0 fusion in which Ratchet is granted the Matrix of Leadership instead of Orion Pax. there was no four million year war. everyone's a little better off for it.
> 
> the matrix is... chatty, for one. demanding, for another. Ratchet's just trying to do his best. 
> 
> please read the rest of the fics in the series so far if you're intrigued! there's something for everybody here
> 
> DUBCON NOTES: the Matrix overrides Drift's armor twice to expose his spark. Ratchet respects his boundaries, but Drift does briefly panic due to being overwhelmed and feeling pushed by cosmic deities into sparkmerging before he's ready.
> 
> title pulled from glory by bastille


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